July 1, 2010
Sean Randolph
Chair, Joint Policy Committee
101 Eighth St
Oakland, CA 94607
Subject: SB 375 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets
Dear Chair Randolph and Joint Policy Committee members:
Thank you for your ongoing work to create a more sustainable and equitable Bay Area, and your current engagement on creation of the Bay Area’s Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS). Implementation of SB375 will benefit the health and well-being of Bay Area residents, businesses, and governments in many ways, as described below. Ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets are needed to set the stage for the land use and transportation policies that will achieve those benefits.
The undersigned organizations are concerned that the GHG targets that have been discussed to date for the region are not ambitious enough, and will lead to an SCS that falls short of the region’s potential. The scenarios that have been used to assess potential greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for the Bay Area don’t reflect the good work that cities and the region have already been doing on land use changes and progressive transportation policy. In addition, MTC’s current modeling software is outdated and significantly underestimates potential GHG reductions.
We applaud MTC staff for their recent commitments to study additional growth scenarios that include a variety of different policy strategies, and to use additional tools and empirical studies to more accurately capture the GHG reductions from these strategies. This letter outlines a few key steps that should be taken during the coming weeks to ensure that the Bay Area sets GHG reduction targets for SB375 that will maximize regional quality of life benefits.
Study a range of strategies to inform what is possible
In the coming weeks, MTC should study scenarios that:
To keep reading this comment letter: SB375 targets joint letter 2010-07-01 (PDF).
